A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
